What Email Metrics Should You Optimize For?

The most successful email subject line from the 2012 Obama campaign was a simple “hey.” It set off a trend of casual, one-word subject lines designed to get a supporter to open the email. This tactic exploited a phenomenon known as the curiosity gap, which is the one weird trick that makes clickbait work.

Email providers like Google are always engaged in a cat-and-mouse game to keep spam out of your inbox. It used to be the case that a high open rate was the best indicator of whether an email was important or not, but that’s changed.

The click through rate – how many people who click and email after opening it – is now the leading indicator of whether your email will be delivered and avoid the promotions tab or spam folder.

The easiest way to improve your click through rate actually has nothing to do with your email copy. Start by sending emails first to segments of your most engaged subscribers. By shrinking the denominator, you’ll get a higher click through rate. Then, if the particular copy does well, then send it to other segments.

When it comes to the email copy, new data reveals that readers are only spending 13.4 seconds reading an email. So if you don’t have a call to action link in the top of your email, you’re missing out on conversions by not even getting the ask in.

And I cannot repeat this part enough: You should only have one call to action and you should repeat it multiple times. You can’t even read this paragraph in 13.4 seconds, much less decide between two, three, four or more calls to action.